Truly man is a marvellously vain, diverse, and undulating object. It is hard to found any constant and uniform judgement on him.

Book I, ch. 1

[I]n my country, when they would say a man has no sense, they say, such an one has no memory; and when I complain of the defect of mine, they do not believe me, and reprove me, as though I accused myself for a fool: not discerning the difference betwixt memory and understanding, which is to make matters still worse for me. But they do me wrong; for experience, rather, daily shows us, on the contrary, that a strong memory is commonly coupled with infirm judgment.

Book I, ch. 9

As for extraordinary things, all the provision in the world would not suffice.

How many we know who have fled the sweetness of a tranquil life in their homes, among the friends, to seek the horror of uninhabitable deserts; who have flung themselves into humiliation, degradation, and the contempt of the world, and have enjoyed these and even sought them out.

Live as long as you please, you will strike nothing off the time you will have to spend dead.

Book I, ch. 20

Wherever your life ends, it is all there. The advantage of living is not measured by length, but by use; some men have lived long, and lived little; attend to it while you are in it. It lies in your will, not in the number of years, for you to have lived enough.

Book I, ch. 20

All of the days go toward death and the last one arrives there.

Book I, ch. 20

We must not attach knowledge to the mind, we have to incorporate it there.

Book I, ch. 25

Every other knowledge is harmful to him who does not have knowledge of goodness.

Book I, ch. 25

To call out for the hand of the enemy is a rather extreme measure, yet a better one, I think, than to remain in continual fever over an accident that has no remedy. But since all the precautions that a man can take are full of uneasiness and uncertainty, it is better to prepare with fine assurance for the worst that can happen, and derive some consolation from the fact that we are not sure that it will happen.

Book I, ch. 25

Un peu de chaque chose, et rien du tout, a la française.

A little of all things, but nothing of everything, after the French manner.

On the education of children; Book I, Chapter 26

Je ne dis les autres, sinon pour d'autant plus me dire.

I do not speak the minds of others except to speak my own mind better.

If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than it was because he was he, and I was I.

Variants: If a man urge me to tell wherefore I loved him, I feel it cannot be expressed but by answering: Because it was he, because it was myself.
If a man should importune me to give a reason why I loved him, I find it could no otherwise be expressed, than by making answer: because it was he, because it was I.

Book I, ch. 28

... il n'est rien creu si fermement que ce qu'on sçait le moins, ...

Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know.

Variant: Nothing is so firmly believed as what is least known.

Book I, ch. 31

L'homme d'entendement n'a rien perdu, s'il a soi-même.

A man of understanding has lost nothing, if he has himself.

Book I, ch. 39

La plus grande chose du monde, c'est de savoir être à soi.

The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.

Book I, ch. 39

He who does not give himself leisure to be thirsty cannot take pleasure in drinking.

Book I, ch. 42

God's justice and His power are inseparable; 'tis in vain we invoke His power in an unjust cause. We are to have our souls pure and clean, at that moment at least wherein we pray to Him, and purified from all vicious passions; otherwise we ourselves present Him the rods wherewith to chastise us; instead of repairing anything we have done amiss, we double the wickedness and the offence when we offer to Him, to whom we are to sue for pardon, an affection full of irreverence and hatred. Which makes me not very apt to applaud those whom I observe to be so frequent on their knees, if the actions nearest to the prayer do not give me some evidence of amendment and reformation

Book I, ch. 56. Of Prayers

A true prayer and religious reconciling of ourselves to Almighty God cannot enter into an impure soul, subject at the very time to the dominion of Satan. He who calls God to his assistance whilst in a course of vice, does as if a cut-purse should call a magistrate to help him, or like those who introduce the name of God to the attestation of a lie.

Book I, ch. 56. Of Prayers

There is nothing so easy, so sweet, and so favourable, as the divine law: it calls and invites us to her, guilty and abominable as we are; extends her arms and receives us into her bosom, foul and polluted as we at present are, and are for the future to be. But then, in return, we are to look upon her with a respectful eye; we are to receive this pardon with all gratitude and submission, and for that instant at least, wherein we address ourselves to her, to have the soul sensible of the ills we have committed, and at enmity with those passions that seduced us to offend her;

It is a thorny undertaking, and more so than it seems, to follow a movement so wandering as that of our mind, to penetrate the opaque depths of its innermost folds, to pick out and immobilize the innumerable flutterings that agitate it.

Book II, ch. 6

Mon métier et mon art, c'est vivre.

My trade and my art is living.

Book II, ch. 6

I am angry at the custom of forbidding children to call their father by the name of father, and to enjoin them another, as more full of respect and reverence, as if nature had not sufficiently provided for our authority. We call Almighty God Father, and disdain to have our children call us so. I have reformed this error in my family.—[As did Henry IV. of France]—And 'tis also folly and injustice to deprive children, when grown up, of familiarity with their father, and to carry a scornful and austere countenance toward them, thinking by that to keep them in awe and obedience; for it is a very idle farce that, instead of producing the effect designed, renders fathers distasteful, and, which is worse, ridiculous to their own children.

Book II, ch. 8. On the affections of fathers to their children

Virtue refuses facility for her companion … the easy, gentle, and sloping path that guides the footsteps of a good natural disposition is not the path of true virtue. It demands a rough and thorny road.

When I play with my cat, who knows if I am not a pastime to her more than she is to me?

Book II, ch. 12

The 1595 edition adds: “We entertain each other with reciprocal monkey tricks. If I have my time to begin or to refuse, so has she hers.” As quoted in Jacques Derrida, The Animal That Therefore I Am, trans. David Wills, Fordham University Press, 2008.

The sage says that all that is under heaven incurs the same law and the same fate.

Book II, ch. 12

As far as fidelity is concerned, there is no animal in the world as treacherous as man.

Book II, ch. 12

The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mold...The same reason that makes us wrangle with a neighbor creates a war betwixt princes.

Book II, ch. 12

The plague of man is boasting of his knowledge.

Book II, ch. 12

The first law that ever God gave to man was a law of pure obedience; it was a commandment naked and simple, wherein man had nothing to inquire after, nor to dispute; forasmuch as to obey is the proper office of a rational soul, acknowledging a heavenly superior and benefactor.

Book II, ch. 12

The participation we have in the knowledge of truth, such as it is, is not acquired by our own force: God has sufficiently given us to understand that, by the witnesses he has chosen out of the common people, simple and ignorant men, that he has been pleased to employ to instruct us in his admirable secrets. Our faith is not of our own acquiring; 'tis purely the gift of another's bounty: 'tis not by meditation, or by virtue of our own understanding, that we have acquired our religion, but by foreign authority and command wherein the imbecility of our own judgment does more assist us than any force of it; and our blindness more than our clearness of sight: 'tis more by__ the mediation of our ignorance than of our knowledge that we know any thing of the divine wisdom. 'Tis no wonder if our natural and earthly parts cannot conceive that supernatural and heavenly knowledge: let us bring nothing of our own, but obedience and subjection; for, as it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that, in the wisdom of God, the world knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe."

Book II, ch. 12

Of all human and ancient opinions concerning religion, that seems to me the most likely and most excusable, that acknowledged God as an incomprehensible power, the original and preserver of all things, all goodness, all perfection, receiving and taking in good part the honour and reverence that man paid him, under what method, name, or ceremonies soever

Book II, ch. 12

Man is forming thousands of ridiculous relations between himself and God.

Book II, ch. 12

We are brought to a belief of God either by reason or by force. Atheism being a proposition as unnatural as monstrous, difficult also and hard to establish in the human understanding, how arrogant soever, there are men enough seen, out of vanity and pride, to be the authors of extraordinary and reforming opinions, and outwardly to affect the profession of them; who, if they are such fools, have, nevertheless, not the power to plant them in their own conscience. Yet will they not fail to lift up their hands towards heaven if you give them a good thrust with a sword in the breast, and when fear or sickness has abated and dulled the licentious fury of this giddy humour they will easily re-unite, and very discreetly suffer themselves to be reconciled to the public faith and examples.

Book II, ch. 12

To an atheist all writings tend to atheism: he corrupts the most innocent matter with his own venom.

Those who have compared our life to a dream were right... We are sleeping awake, and waking asleep.

Book II, ch. 12

There must then be something that is better, and that must be God. When you see a stately and stupendous edifice, though you do not know who is the owner of it, you would yet conclude it was not built for rats. And this divine structure, that we behold of the celestial palace, have we not reason to believe that it is the residence of some possessor, who is much greater than we?

Book II, ch. 12

We are no nearer heaven on the top of Mount Cenis than at the bottom of the sea; take the distance with your astrolabe. They debase God even to the carnal knowledge of women, to so many times, and so many generations.

Book II, ch. 12

It was truly very good reason that we should be beholden to God only, and to the favour of his grace, for the truth of so noble a belief, since from his sole bounty we receive the fruit of immortality, which consists in the enjoyment of eternal beatitude.... The more we give and confess to owe and render to God, we do it with the greater Christianity.

Book II, ch. 12

God might grant us riches, honours, life, and even health, to our own hurt; for every thing that is pleasing to us is not always good for us. If he sends us death, or an increase of sickness, instead of a cure, Vvrga tua et baculus, tuus ipsa me consolata sunt. "Thy rod and thy staff have comforted me," he does it by the rule of his providence, which better and more certainly discerns what is proper for us than we can do; and we ought to take it in good part, as coming from a wise and most friendly hand

Book II, ch. 12

to make the handle bigger than the hand, the cubic longer than the arm, and to hope to stride further than our legs can reach, is both impossible and monstrous; or that man should rise above himself and humanity; for he cannot see but with his eyes, nor seize but with his hold. He shall be exalted, if God will lend him an extraordinary hand; he shall exalt himself, by abandoning and renouncing his own proper means, and by suffering himself to be raised and elevated by means purely celestial. It belongs to our Christian faith, and not to the stoical virtue, to pretend to that divine and miraculous metamorphosis.

Book II, ch. 12

There is the name and the thing: the name is a voice which denotes and signifies the thing; the name is no part of the thing, nor of the substance; 'tis a foreign piece joined to the thing, and outside it. God, who is all fulness in Himself and the height of all perfection, cannot augment or add anything to Himself within; but His name may be augmented and increased by the blessing and praise we attribute to His exterior works: which praise, seeing we cannot incorporate it in Him, forasmuch as He can have no accession of good, we attribute to His name, which is the part out of Him that is nearest to us. Thus is it that to God alone glory and honour appertain; and there is nothing so remote from reason as that we should go in quest of it for ourselves; for, being indigent and necessitous within, our essence being imperfect, and having continual need of amelioration, 'tis to that we ought to employ all our endeavour.

Book II, ch. 16

How many valiant men we have seen to survive their own reputation!

Book II, ch. 16

A man may be humble through vainglory.

Book II, ch. 17

I find that the best goodness I have has some tincture of vice.

Book II, ch. 20

Saying is one thing and doing is another.

Book II, ch. 31

As far as physicians go, chance is more valuable than knowledge.

Book II, ch. 37

Physicians have this advantage: the sun lights their success and the earth covers their failures.

Book II, ch. 37

There were never in the world two opinions alike, any more than two hairs or two grains. Their most universal quality is diversity.

I will follow the good side right to the fire, but not into it if I can help it.

Book III (1595), ch. 1

I speak the truth, not my fill of it, but as much as I dare speak; and I dare to do so a little more as I grow old.

Book III, ch. 2

Few men have been admired by their own households.

Book III, ch. 2

Chaque homme porte la forme, entière de l'humaîne condition.

Every man bears the whole stamp of the human condition.

Book III, ch. 2

For my own part, I may desire in general to be other than I am; I may condemn and dislike my whole form, and beg of Almighty God for an entire reformation, and that He will please to pardon my natural infirmity: but I ought not to call this repentance, methinks, no more than the being dissatisfied that I am not an angel or Cato. My actions are regular, and conformable to what I am and to my condition; I can do no better; and repentance does not properly touch things that are not in our power; sorrow does.. I imagine an infinite number of natures more elevated and regular than mine; and yet I do not for all that improve my faculties, no more than my arm or will grow more strong and vigorous for conceiving those of another to be so.

Book III, ch. 2

Malice sucks up the greatest part of its own venom, and poisons itself.

It (marriage) happens as with cages: the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out.

Book III, ch. 5

Not because Socrates said so, but because it is in truth my own disposition — and perchance to some excess — I look upon all men as my compatriots, and embrace a Pole as a Frenchman, making less account of the national than of the universal and common bond.

There is no man so good that if he placed all his actions and thoughts under the scrutiny of the laws, he would not deserve hanging ten times in his life.

Book III, ch. 9

A man must be a little mad if he does not want to be even more stupid.

Book III, ch. 9

At the very beginning of my fevers and sicknesses that cast me down, whilst still entire, and but little, disordered in health, I reconcile myself to Almighty God by the last Christian, offices, and find myself by so doing less oppressed and more easy, and have got, methinks, so much the better of my disease. And I have yet less need of a notary or counsellor than of a physician.

Book III, ch. 9

I have seen no more evident monstrosity and miracle in the world than myself.

I have gathered a posy of other men’s flowers, and nothing but the thread that binds them is mine own.

Book III, ch. 12

God never sends evils

Book III, ch. 12

There is no wish more natural than the wish to know.

Book III, ch. 13

It is more of a job to interpret the interpretations than to interpret the things, and there are more books about books than about any other subject: we do nothing but write glosses about each other.

Book III, ch. 13

For truth itself does not have the privilege to be employed at any time and in every way; its use, noble as it is, has its circumscriptions and limits.

Book III, ch. 13

He who remembers the evils he has undergone, and those that have threatened him, and the slight causes that have changed him from one state to another, prepares himself in that way for future changes and for recognizing his condition. The life of Caesar has no more to show us than our own; an emperor's or an ordinary man's, it is still a life subject to all human accidents.

No matter that we may mount on stilts, we still must walk on our own legs. And on the highest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own bottom.

Book III, ch. 13

Let us give Nature a chance; she knows her business better than we do.

Book III, ch. 13

In this present that God has made us, there is nothing unworthy our care; we stand accountable for it even to a hair; and is it not a commission to man, to conduct man according to his condition; 'tis express, plain, and the very principal one, and the Creator has seriously and strictly prescribed it to us. Authority has power only to work in regard to matters of common judgment, and is of more weight in a foreign language; therefore let us again charge at it in this place

All passions that suffer themselves to be relished and digested are but moderate.

Book I, ch. 2. Of Sorrow

It is not without good reason said, that he who has not a good memory should never take upon him the trade of lying.

Book I, ch. 9. Of Liars

He who should teach men to die would at the same time teach them to live.

Book I, ch. 18. That Men are not to judge of our Happiness till after Death

The laws of conscience, which we pretend to be derived from nature, proceed from custom.

Book I, ch. 22. Of Custom

Accustom him to everything, that he may not be a Sir Paris, a carpet-knight, 5 but a sinewy, hardy, and vigorous young man.

Book I, ch. 15. Of the Education of Children

We were halves throughout, and to that degree that methinks by outliving him I defraud him of his part.

Book I, ch. 27. Of Friendship

There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.

Book I, ch. 30. Of Cannibals

Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know.

Book I, ch. 31. Of Divine Ordinances

A wise man never loses anything, if he has himself.

Book I, ch. 38. Of Solitude

Even opinion is of force enough to make itself to be espoused at the expense of life.

Book I, ch. 40. Of Good and Evil

Plato says, "'T is to no purpose for a sober man to knock at the door of the Muses;" and Aristotle says "that no excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of folly."

Book II, ch. 2. Of Drunkenness

For a desperate disease a desperate cure.

Book II, ch. 3. The Custom of the Isle of Cea

And not to serve for a table-talk.

Book II, ch. 3. The Custom of the Isle of Cea

To which we may add this other Aristotelian consideration, that he who confers a benefit on any one loves him better than he is beloved by him again.

Book II, ch. 8. Of the Affections of Fathers

The middle sort of historians (of which the most part are) spoil all; they will chew our meat for us.

Book II, ch. 10. Of Books

The only good histories are those that have been written by the persons themselves who commanded in the affairs whereof they write.

Book II, ch. 10. Of Books

She [virtue] requires a rough and stormy passage; she will have either outward difficulties to wrestle with, 11 … or internal difficulties.

Book II, ch. 11. Of Cruelty

There is, nevertheless, a certain respect and a general duty of humanity that ties us, not only to beasts that have life and sense, but even to trees and plants.

Book II, ch. 11. Of Cruelty

Some impose upon the world that they believe that which they do not; others, more in number, make themselves believe that they believe, not being able to penetrate into what it is to believe.

Book II, ch. 12. Apology for Raimond Sebond

When I play with my cat, who knows whether I do not make her more sport than she makes me?

Book II, ch. 12. Apology for Raimond Sebond

'T is one and the same Nature that rolls on her course, and whoever has sufficiently considered the present state of things might certainly conclude as to both the future and the past.

Book II, ch. 12. Apology for Raimond Sebond

The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mould…. The same reason that makes us wrangle with a neighbour causes a war betwixt princes.

Book II, ch. 12. Apology for Raimond Sebond

Man is certainly stark mad; he cannot make a worm, and yet he will be making gods by dozens.

Book II, ch. 12. Apology for Raimond Sebond

Why may not a goose say thus: "All the parts of the universe I have an interest in: the earth serves me to walk upon, the sun to light me; the stars have their influence upon me; I have such an advantage by the winds and such by the waters; there is nothing that yon heavenly roof looks upon so favourably as me. I am the darling of Nature! Is it not man that keeps and serves me?"

Book II, ch. 12. Apology for Raimond Sebond

Arts and sciences are not cast in a mould, but are formed and perfected by degrees, by often handling and polishing, as bears leisurely lick their cubs into form.

Book II, ch. 12. Apology for Raimond Sebond

He that I am reading seems always to have the most force.

Book II, ch. 12. Apology for Raimond Sebond

Apollo said that every one's true worship was that which he found in use in the place where he chanced to be.

Book II, ch. 12. Apology for Raimond Sebond

How many worthy men have we seen survive their own reputation!

Book II, ch. 16. Of Glory

The mariner of old said to Neptune in a great tempest, "O God! thou mayest save me if thou wilt, and if thou wilt thou mayest destroy me; but whether or no, I will steer my rudder true."

Book II, ch. 16. Of Glory

One may be humble out of pride.

Book II, ch. 17. Of Presumption

I find that the best virtue I have has in it some tincture of vice.

Book II, ch. 20. That we taste nothing pure

Saying is one thing, doing another.

Book II, ch. 31. Of Anger

Is it not a noble farce, wherein kings, republics, and emperors have for so many ages played their parts, and to which the whole vast universe serves for a theatre?

Book II, ch. 36. Of the most Excellent Men

Nature forms us for ourselves, not for others; to be, not to seem.

Book II, ch. 37. Of the Resemblance of Children to their Brothers

There never was in the world two opinions alike, no more than two hairs or two grains; the most universal quality is diversity.

Book II, ch. 37. Of the Resemblance of Children to their Fathers

The public weal requires that men should betray and lie and massacre.

Book III, ch. 1. Of Profit and Honesty

Like rowers, who advance backward.

Book III, ch. 1. Of Profit and Honesty

I speak truth, not so much as I would, but as much as I dare; and I dare a little the more as I grow older.

Book iii. Chap 2. Of Repentance

Few men have been admired by their own domestics.

Book iii. Chap 2. Of Repentance

It happens as with cages: the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out.

Book III, ch. 5. Upon some Verses of Virgil

And to bring in a new word by the head and shoulders, they leave out the old one.

Book III, ch. 5. Upon some Verses of Virgil

All the world knows me in my book, and my book in me.

Book III, ch. 5. Upon some Verses of Virgil

'T is so much to be a king, that he only is so by being so. The strange lustre that surrounds him conceals and shrouds him from us; our sight is there broken and dissipated, being stopped and filled by the prevailing light.

Book III, ch. 7. Of the Inconveniences of Greatness

We are born to inquire after truth; it belongs to a greater power to possess it. It is not, as Democritus said, hid in the bottom of the deeps, but rather elevated to an infinite height in the divine knowledge.

Book III, ch. 8. Of the Art of Conversation

I moreover affirm that our wisdom itself, and wisest consultations, for the most part commit themselves to the conduct of chance.

Book III, ch. 8. Of the Art of Conversation

What if he has borrowed the matter and spoiled the form, as it oft falls out?

Book III, ch. 8. Of the Art of Conversation

The oldest and best known evil was ever more supportable than one that was new and untried.

Book III, ch. 9. Of Vanity

Not because Socrates said so,… I look upon all men as my compatriots.

Book III, ch. 9. Of Vanity

My appetite comes to me while eating.

Book III, ch. 9. Of Vanity

There is no man so good, who, were he to submit all his thoughts and actions to the laws, would not deserve hanging ten times in his life.

Book III, ch. 9. Of Vanity

Saturninus said, "Comrades, you have lost a good captain to make him an ill general."

Book III, ch. 9. Of Vanity

A little folly is desirable in him that will not be guilty of stupidity.

Book III, ch. 9. Of Vanity

Habit is a second nature.

Book III, ch. 10

We seek and offer ourselves to be gulled.

Book III, ch. 11. Of Cripples

I have never seen a greater monster or miracle in the world than myself.

Book III, ch. 11. Of Cripples

Men are most apt to believe what they least understand.

Book III, ch. 11. Of Cripples

I have here only made a nosegay of culled flowers, and have brought nothing of my own but the thread that ties them together.

Book III, ch. 12. Of Physiognomy

Amongst so many borrowed things, I am glad if I can steal one, disguising and altering it for some new service.

Book III, ch. 12. Of Physiognomy

I am further of opinion that it would be better for us to have [no laws] at all than to have them in so prodigious numbers as we have.

Book III, ch. 13. Of Experience

For truth itself has not the privilege to be spoken at all times and in all sorts.

Book III, ch. 13. Of Experience

The diversity of physical arguments and opinions embraces all sorts of methods.

Book III, ch. 13. Of Experience

I have ever loved to repose myself, whether sitting or lying, with my heels as high or higher than my head.

Book III, ch. 13. Of Experience

I, who have so much and so universally adored this [greek], "excellent mediocrity," 32 of ancient times, and who have concluded the most moderate measure the most perfect, shall I pretend to an unreasonable and prodigious old age?

Most quotations of Montaigne come from the Essais but the following have not yet been given definite citation.

A good marriage would be between a blind wife and a deaf husband.

Book III, ch. 5

A wise man sees as much as he ought, not as much as he can

Age imprints more wrinkles in the mind than it does on the face.

Book III, ch. 2

Ambition is not a vice of little people.

Book III, ch. 10

An untempted woman cannot boast of her chastity.

Confidence in another man's virtue is no light evidence of a man's own, and God willingly favors such a confidence.

Variant: Confidence in the goodness of another is good proof of one's own goodness.

Book I, ch. 14

Courtesy is a science of the highest importance. It is, like grace and beauty in the body, which charm at first sight, and lead on to further intimacy and friendship, opening a door that we may derive instruction from the example of others, and at the same time enabling us to benefit them by our example, if there be anything in our character worthy of imitation.

Covetousness is both the beginning and the end of the devil's alphabet— the first vice in corrupt nature that moves, and the last which dies.

Death, they say, acquits us of all obligations.

Book I, ch. 7

Don't discuss yourself, for you are bound to lose; if you belittle yourself, you are believed; if you praise yourself, you are disbelieved.

Book III, ch. 8

Even from their infancy we frame them to the sports of love: their instruction, behavior, attire, grace, learning and all their words azimuth only at love, respects only affection. Their nurses and their keepers imprint no other thing in them.

Fame and tranquility can never be bedfellows.

Book I, ch. 39

Fashion is the science of appearances, and it inspires one with the desire to seem rather than to be.

Fortune, seeing that she could not make fools wise, has made them lucky.

Book III, ch. 8

This quote is a paraphrase of a lengthier statement, as follows: We ordinarily see, in the actions of the world, that Fortune, to shew us her power in all things, and who takes a pride in abating our presumption, seeing she could not make fools wise, has made them fortunate in emulation of virtue; and most favours those operations the web of which is most purely her own; whence it is that the simplest amongst us bring to pass great business, both public and private; and, as Seiramnes, the Persian, answered those who wondered that his affairs succeeded so ill, considering that his deliberations were so wise, ‘that he was sole master of his designs, but success was wholly in the power of fortune’; these may answer the same, but with a contrary turn.

From Essays of Michel de Montaigne, translated by Charles Cotton (1877), Book the Third, Chapter VIII — Of The Art Of Conference. Note : this is the version found at Project Gutenberg.

Hath God obliged himself not to exceed the bounds of our knowledge?

Book II, ch. 12

He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak.

He who fears he shall suffer, already suffers what he fears.

Book III, ch. 13

He who is not sure of his memory, should not undertake the trade of lying.

Variant: He who is not very strong in memory should not meddle with lying.

Book I, ch. 9

I care not so much what I am to others as what I am to myself. I will be rich by myself, and not by borrowing.

Book II, ch. 16

I do myself a greater injury in lying than I do him of whom I tell a lie.

Book II, ch. 17

I know well what I am fleeing from but not what I am in search of.

Book III, ch. 9

I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly.

If you don't know how to die, don't worry; Nature will tell you what to do on the spot, fully and adequately. She will do this job perfectly for you; don't bother your head about it.

In plain truth, lying is an accursed vice. We are not men, nor have any other tie upon another, but by our word.

Book I, ch. 9

In true education, anything that comes to our hand is as good as a book: the prank of a page-boy, the blunder of a servant, a bit of table talk— they are all part of the curriculum.

It is the mind that maketh good or ill, That maketh wretch or happy, rich or poor.

It should be noted that children at play are not playing about; their games should be seen as their most serious-minded activity.

Variants: It should be noted that the games of children are not games, and must be considered as their most serious actions.
For truly it is to be noted, that children's plays are not sports, and should be deemed as their most serious actions.

Book I, ch. 23

Labour not after riches first, and think thou afterwards wilt enjoy them. He who neglecteth the present moment, throweth away all that he hath. As the arrow passeth through the heart, while the warrior knew not that it was coming; so shall his life be taken away before he knoweth that he hath it.

Love to his soul gave eyes; he knew things are not as they seem. The dream is his real life; the world around him is the dream.

Make your educational laws strict and your criminal ones can be gentle; but if you leave youth its liberty you will have to dig dungeons for ages.

Marriage is like a cage; one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside equally desperate to get out.

Book III, ch. 5

Marriage, a market which has nothing free but the entrance.

My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened.

No man is exempt from saying silly things; the mischief is to say them deliberately.

Book III, ch. 1

No wind serves him who addresses his voyage to no certain port.

Book II, ch. 1

Not being able to govern events, I govern myself.

Book II, ch. 17

Nothing prints more lively in our minds than something we wish to forget.

Book II, ch. 12

Observe, observe perpetually.

Of all our infirmities, the most savage is to despise our being.

Book III, ch. 13

Variant: Of all the infirmities we have, 'tis the most savage to despise our being. (Charles Cotton translation)

Once conform, once do what others do because they do it, and a kind of lethargy steals over all the finer senses of the soul.

So it is with minds. Unless you keep them busy with some definite subject that will bridle and control them, they throw themselves in disorder hither and yon in the vague field of imagination. ..And there is no mad or idle fancy that they do no bring forth in the agitation.

Book I, ch. 8

The art of dining well is no slight art, the pleasure not a slight pleasure.

The ceaseless labour of your life is to build the house of death.

Book I, ch. 20

The entire lower world was created in the likeness of the higher world. All that exists in the higher world appears like an image in this lower world; yet all this is but One.

The most manifest sign of wisdom is a continual cheerfulness; her state is like that in the regions above the moon, always clear and serene.

Variant: The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness.

Book I, ch. 26

The most profound joy has more of gravity than of gaiety in it.

Book II, ch. 20

The strangest, most generous, and proudest of all virtues is true courage.

The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them... Whether you find satisfaction in life depends not on your tale of years, but on your will.

The world is all a carcass and vanity, The shadow of a shadow, a play
And in one word, just nothing.

The world is but a perpetual see-saw.

The worst of my actions or conditions seem not so ugly unto me as I find it both ugly and base not to dare to avouch for them.

There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.

There is a plague on Man, the opinion that he knows something.

There is a sort of gratification in doing good which makes us rejoice in ourselves.

Book III, ch. 2

There is little less trouble in governing a private family than a whole kingdom.

Variant: There is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an entire state.

Book I, ch. 39

There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees.

There is no passion so contagious as that of fear.

There is no pleasure to me without communication: there is not so much as a sprightly thought comes into my mind that it does not grieve me to have produced alone, and that I have no one to tell it to.

There is nothing more notable in Socrates than that he found time, when he was an old man, to learn music and dancing, and thought it time well spent.

Book III, ch. 13

Those that will combat use and custom by the strict rules of grammar do but jest.

'Tis the sharpness of our mind that gives the edge to our pains and pleasures.

Book I, ch. 14

Valor is stability, not of legs and arms, but of courage and the soul.

We can be knowledgeable with other men's knowledge, but we cannot be wise with other men's wisdom.

Book I, ch. 25

We only labor to stuff the memory, and leave the conscience and the understanding unfurnished and void.

Book I, ch. 25

When I am attacked by gloomy thoughts, nothing helps me so much as running to my books. They quickly absorb me and banish the clouds from my mind.

Who does not in some sort live to others, does not live much to himself.

Book III, ch. 10

Wonder is the foundation of all philosophy, research is the means of all learning, and ignorance is the end.

Montaigne speak of an “Abecedarian” ignorance that precedes knowledge, and a doctoral ignorance that comes after it. The first is the ignorance of those who, not knowing their A-B-C’s, cannot read at all. The second is the ignorance of those who have misread many books.

Sarah Bakewell, describing Montaigne’s retirement at age 38, How to Live (2010), p. 24

He felt ordinary, but knew that the very fact of realizing his ordinariness made him extraordinary.

Sarah Bakewell, How to Live (2010), p. 52

The hedonistic approach to education did make a difference to him. Having been guided early in life by his own curiosity alone, he grew up to be an independent-minded adult, following his own path in everything rather than deferring to duty and discipline.

The most offensive egotist is he that fears to say "I" and "me." "It will probably rain "—that is dogmatic. "I think it will rain"—that is natural and modest. Montaigne is the most delightful of essayists because so great is his humility that he does not think it important that we see not Montaigne. He so forgets himself that he employs no artifice to make us forget him.

Europeans had often thought that somewhere in the world must dwell a noble race, remnants of that golden age before man became corrupted by civilization. As reports of Indians filtered back to Europe... Michelle de Montaigne took the trouble to talk with explorers, to read the traveler's chronicles, and even to meet three Indians who had been brought as curiosities to the Court of Versailles. He concluded that the Noble Savage has at last been found, for the Indian "hath... no name of magistrate, nor of politics... no contracts... no apparel but natural... The very words that import a lie, falsehood, treason, covetousness, envy, detraction, were not heard among them." Montaigne presented an idealized notion about the aborigines ...that foreshadowed the Noble Savage of Jean Jacques Rousseau.

The manner in which Epictetus, Montaigne, and Salomon de Tultie wrote, is the most usual, the most suggestive, the most remembered, and the oftener quoted; because it is entirely composed of thoughts born from the common talk of life.

Note: Salomon de Tultie was a pseudonym adopted by Pascal as the author of the Provincial Letters.

What the earliest utopians—Montaigne, Thomas More, Tommaso Campanella—understood was that they fought not for a place but for a new set of ideas through which to recognize what would count as Real: Equality, not hierarchical authority. Individual dignity, not slavish subservience. Our preeminent problem is that we recognize the Real in what is most deadly: a culture of duty to legalities that are, finally, cruel and destructive. We need to work inventively—as Christ did, as Thoreau did—in the spirit of disobedience for the purpose of refusing the social order into which we happen to have been born and putting in its place a culture of life-giving things.